Into Darkness
by Gil Shalos1
Summary: Five Things That Never Happened to Alexandra Cabot.


**

* * *

****Five things that never happened to Alexandra Cabot**

* * *

**ONE  
**

Alex is turning a little when she sees

_Light _

the muzzle flash bright in the New York evening and before she has time to realise what it is the sound of the shot and the impact hit her simultaneously.

For a minute, lying on her back looking up at the streetlight, she doesn't understand what has happened. _I've been shot,_ she thinks at last.

She can feel the gritty sidewalk beneath her fingertips and that's all she can feel. There's no pain. She wants to tell Olivia that, because Olivia looks upset. Olivia is crying. Salt tears fall on Alex's face. Alex opens her mouth to say _It's okay __Livy__ it doesn't hurt _but her mouth suddenly full of blood and then it does hurt

_it hurts so fucking much _

and she wants to say _Help me Liv it hurts it hurts so much_ but she can't say that either because there's no words in her mouth, only blood.

She spits it out and chokes and manages –

"Liv."

**_Dark_**.

* * *

**TWO  
**

"Are you sure about this?" Olivia asks, sitting down on the hospital bed beside Alex. She takes Alex's hand.

Alex nods. "I won't run from them, Liv. That way they win." She takes a breath, tells the other half of the truth. "And I'd never see you again."

Alex sees Olivia's eyes fill with tears before the detective bows her head and leans her head on Alex's shoulder for a few seconds. "I'd live with that if I knew you were safe."

"I'm safe," Alex tells her, pretending a confidence that is a long way from how she feels. "I've got all these cops around me. I'm safe. And I'm not going."

"Okay." Olivia smiles, and rubs Alex's shoulder, the one without the bullet hole. "C'mon. I'll drive you."

Alex has to go to the door of the hospital in a wheelchair – it's policy. She's secretly glad of it. Even with the painkillers she hurts, and after a few minutes on her feet she feels shaky and weak. Olivia pushes her along the corridor and when they reach the carpark she doesn't stop but wheels Alex all the way up to the car. _Liv always knows_. Olivia knows Alex's mood when Alex is only half aware of it herself.

Alex half turns in the chair when Olivia puts the brakes on and squeezes the detective's hand in wordless gratitude. Olivia smiles down at her.

"Let's get you in the car."

Alex sits in the passenger seat and closes her eyes while Olivia takes the wheelchair back to the hospital door. _See_, _it's not so scary, leaving the hospital. _She takes a couple of deep breaths but she's still keyed up enough to jump when Oliva opens the driver side door.

"Let's go," Olivia says. "We'll have you home in no time."

Alex reaches across to touch Olivia's hand. "Thanks," she says. "You take good care of me."

Olivia grins. "I do, don't I?" She turns the key and the ignition races, stalls. She frowns, tries again.

Alex looks out the window and sees Elliot running towards them, running and yelling, and she's about to say _hey Liv look_ when Olivia turns the key again and the ignition catches and –

_Light _

Alex's vision goes white as bleached linen and she hears this big fucking roar and

_Heat fire scream _

**_Dark_**.

* * *

**THREE **

Wyoming winters are cold and the nights and long and dark. After the first month of going home from work in the dark to an empty apartment and sitting by the radiator in her coat and hat and gloves until it warms up Alex – _no, Louise, remember, you are Louise_ – starts dropping in to the bar at the end of her street on the way past. A couple of belts warms her up enough so she doesn't mind the chill in the apartment quite so much.

As it gets colder she needs more than a couple of belts to keep the cold outside and in at bay.

There's no shortage of guys wanting to buy her a drink, and it's not like she's cheating on anyone, not anymore. They're no substitute, but they're warm. Sometimes she feels like there's a part of her standing outside herself, looking on appalled as she stumbles down the street hand-in-hand with a man she's known for less than an hour, fumbling for her keys at the door. _Don't you know what could happen, you stupid fool? Haven't you seen it often enough? Haven't you prosecuted it often enough? _

But she hasn't, that's the point. Alexandra Cabot has seen it all before, but Alexandra Cabot isn't here on a barstool in Wyoming. Louise Fletcher is, and Louise Fletcher isn't an SVU prosecutor, isn't any kind of prosecutor at all. Louise Fletcher is a claims adjustor and has no reason at all to know just how wrong a night out can go.

She smiles at the tall rancher who has just asked her if she wants another drink. "You know," she says, "it's kind of noisy in here. My place is just around the corner. We could go up there for a drink."

He doesn't say no. They never say no.

Back in her apartment she turns on the radiator and apologises for the length of time it takes to get going. The rancher cracks a joke about having no trouble warming up and she laughs, even though it's the exact same joke ninety percent of the guys she's brought back here have made. In the kitchen pouring the drinks she knocks back hers and refills her glass.

Later, in bed, he calls her by another woman's name as he comes, and then apologises.

"I don't care," she tells him honestly. "Call me whatever you want. You know – " she shouldn't say this, she knows, but the nights are long and dark and cold in Wyoming "You know, I used to have another name."

The rancher reaches down beside the bed where he discarded his pants and jacket. "I know," he says, turning back to her, and that's when she sees the gun.

Alex smiles. "There's a certain poetic irony to this," she tells him, wondering if the FBI will notify her friends and family that she's now dead for real. Wondering if they'll tell them how. _Oh, Liv, I should have known better. _

The silenced gun makes hardly any soun -

**_Dark_**.

* * *

**FOUR **

**  
**

Winter in South Dakota is long and cold. Alex - she's Alex, always, to herself, even though she worries about slipping up in public, her name is her name she's not giving it away for anyone – Alex hunches her shoulders against the lazy wind that wants to blow right through her.

The first winter was a shock, but everything was a shock right then. This second year she's settled into her new routine and can look ahead and imagine the rest of the season. It stretches out, grim and grey, gritty as the salt on the sidewalk.

She sighs, leans into the buffeting wind. It's hard work walking against it, especially given the weight she's lost. She eats when she remembers, but she was always thin and without Olivia to suggest they go out for ribs or order in or grab a sandwich on the way to court –

The wind gusts around her. Alex, with one foot in the past and the other on a patch of ice, loses her balance.

She goes down hard, not on the snow, on the sidewalk, and she hears a noise she's never heard before as a blinding light goes off behind her eyes. _Something broke. _

_Something important. _

There's a man standing over her asking if she's all right but Alex can't speak to answer him, can't take a breath, can't –

Her last thought is exasperation at the banality of it. _This is fucking ridiculous_.

Second last.

_Liv. _

**_Dark. _**

**_

* * *

_**

**FIVE **

**  
**

"My name is Alexandra Cabot," she says aloud. There's nobody but the hotel suite walls to hear her, so she says it again, then adds: "ADA Cabot for the People, your honour."

A fat salty tear runs down the side of her nose. She lets it. For years she has swallowed down the tears whenever they threaten, telling herself _No point feeling sorry for yourself_. Telling herself _At least you're alive. _

But she isn't alive. Not really. Alex lets herself cry. It's not self pity. It's sorrow. She's crying for the dead.

She's crying for herself. She's been dead for years.

_What else do you call it when someone takes your life but murder? _

You can't save your life by giving up your life. Alex knows that now.

She stands up and looks in the mirror and says it again.

"ADA Alexandra Cabot for the People, your honour." She doesn't look like ADA Cabot, not any more. Her hair is dark, but that's not the only reason. Alex Cabot was a smart, confident, highly competent lawyer. The woman looking back at her out of the mirror is none of those things.

The woman looking back at her out of the mirror is what's left of Alex Cabot after the most important parts of her were shot dead by an assassin's bullet.

_Job. Friends. Home. Family. _

_Liv. _

_All of them dead that night. _

_All of them. And me too._

It's just taken her a few years to realise it.

She lines up all the pills first, then starts at one end. Two at a time. She's always been careful and methodical. It served her well at the DAs Office.

It takes her nearly fifteen minutes to take them all, and she's already feeling drowsy when she finishes. A quick last minute check that she's forgotten nothing – the note on the desk in the front room of the suite telling the maid not to come into the bedroom, just call the police straight away (written in Spanish as well and English, Alex is quite proud of herself for the consideration that shows), the letters laid out on the dresser – all set. All ready.

She lies down on the bed and closes her eyes. She'll be gone in minutes. Really, she's been gone for years. All she is doing today is formalising something that happened long ago on a New York street.

_How long can you go on living when your life is over? _

Three years, four months, seventeen days, that's how long.

Blurrily, Alex wonders if the letters she's left say enough, explain enough. Will they understand? Will they forgive her? Will they know not to blame themselves?

_Maybe I should – _

**_Dark. _**

* * *

**_ fin _**


End file.
